How Your Body Can Change Your Mind

I love TED Talks. A lot. And probably one of my favorite videos I’ve ever encountered on their site was a talk by social psychologist Amy Cuddy called Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are. In her talk, she explains her research on how your body language—and specifically your posture—affects your stress levels and your confidence. Cuddy and her colleagues conducted a series of experiments in which they had people sit in either high-power or low-power poses for just two minutes before going into a job interview.

Frankly the results were shocking. Cuddy discovered that how you sit affects not just your performance in a high-stress situation, but also the chemicals in your body and ultimately your self-esteem. The big takeaway? Making tiny changes in your posture can greatly alter the course of your life and how you handle stress.